WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:15.000 This is Hacker Public Radio episode 3,927 for Tuesday, the 22nd of August 2023. 00:15.000 --> 00:21.920 Today's show is entitled, Audacity Update Second July 2023. 00:21.920 --> 00:26.200 It is hosted by Ahu Ka and is about six minutes long. 00:26.200 --> 00:28.800 It carries a clean flag. 00:28.800 --> 00:31.800 The summary is, Reserve Show. 00:31.800 --> 00:35.800 Audacity has been having problems lately. 00:35.800 --> 00:43.800 You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q. 00:43.800 --> 00:48.800 We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled. 00:48.800 --> 00:54.800 This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive. 00:54.800 --> 00:57.800 Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio. 00:58.800 --> 01:03.800 Hello, this is Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode. 01:03.800 --> 01:07.800 This is an emergency episode. 01:07.800 --> 01:13.800 If you are hearing this, that means the Q has run terribly low. 01:13.800 --> 01:16.800 Ken is getting desperate for shows. 01:16.800 --> 01:21.800 If you are out there listening to this, record a show. 01:21.800 --> 01:24.800 It is actually extremely easy to do. 01:24.800 --> 01:31.800 You will find there is already a whole bunch of shows have been recorded about how to record a show and how easy it is. 01:31.800 --> 01:35.800 So, you know, do that. 01:35.800 --> 01:39.800 The only bad show is the one we don't receive. 01:39.800 --> 01:47.800 So, with that, I want to give an update on something that has happened with Audacity. 01:47.800 --> 02:00.800 And I recorded a show, it is number 3900 for Hacker Public Radio, about my workflow for preparing podcasts for listening. 02:00.800 --> 02:04.800 I download a ton of podcasts. 02:04.800 --> 02:08.800 I really like them. 02:08.800 --> 02:16.800 The problem is that when you have that many podcasts, you have to kind of do some prep work on them. 02:17.800 --> 02:22.800 And so, that show was all about how I prepare the podcasts for listening. 02:22.800 --> 02:31.800 And that includes speeding them up, normalizing, you know, boosting the volume a little, et cetera, et cetera. 02:31.800 --> 02:35.800 And, you know, it is a workflow that has worked very well for me for a long time, 02:35.800 --> 02:39.800 except lately something has happened. 02:39.800 --> 02:44.800 And I don't know what it, I've got a hint as to what it might be. 02:44.800 --> 02:52.800 But all of a sudden podcasts that had been working fine for many, many years, 02:52.800 --> 03:02.800 I would try and import them into Audacity and, you know, loading a file in Audacity is important. 03:02.800 --> 03:05.800 So, and that's step one of the process. 03:05.800 --> 03:11.800 You go to import the file before you can go through the rest of the processing steps. 03:11.800 --> 03:19.800 And Audacity was just choking on the import and throwing out air messages. 03:19.800 --> 03:35.800 Now, some of these were things about, you know, bad huffman code, another time, bad file length, or forbidden bitrate value. 03:35.800 --> 03:39.800 Now, it's entirely possible that these are real errors of some kind. 03:39.800 --> 03:43.800 But are they really bad enough to just refuse to load the files? 03:43.800 --> 03:45.800 I actually don't think so. 03:45.800 --> 03:49.800 In fact, I did a little online searching. 03:49.800 --> 03:58.800 And that disclosed that Audacity decided to enable air checking in their decoding library, which is called LibMed, 03:58.800 --> 04:01.800 which it had not done before. 04:02.800 --> 04:06.800 But they realized it was picking up a lot of really minor stuff. 04:06.800 --> 04:09.800 So, in the next version, they may relax the air checking. 04:09.800 --> 04:10.800 I hope so. 04:10.800 --> 04:15.800 Though I note that some of this information is from 2020. 04:15.800 --> 04:25.800 Then again, I note that the version that I am getting through the repository is pretty out of date as well. 04:25.800 --> 04:29.800 So, problems, problems, problems, problems. 04:29.800 --> 04:33.800 Anyway, my work around is I use online file converters. 04:33.800 --> 04:37.800 Now, the online file converters load the files just fine. 04:37.800 --> 04:43.800 Which is one of the reasons I think Audacity is just being a little too nit-bickey there. 04:43.800 --> 04:46.800 But anyway, I go to them. 04:46.800 --> 04:54.800 I load up the MP3, which I upload to the site, and then just convert it to something like, say, 04:55.800 --> 04:58.800 and then download the converted file. 04:58.800 --> 04:59.800 All right. 04:59.800 --> 05:02.800 The files are probably all an MP3 to begin with. 05:02.800 --> 05:09.800 There are very few podcasts that don't send out MP3 as the default. 05:09.800 --> 05:13.800 But, you know, once it's converted to Audge, I can download it. 05:13.800 --> 05:19.800 And then my Audacity script will run on the converted file just perfectly. 05:20.800 --> 05:23.800 Now, I found a couple of sites I like. 05:23.800 --> 05:27.800 And it's not to say that there's any shortage of converters out there. 05:27.800 --> 05:34.800 But, two of the ones that I've used are convertio, link in the show notes, 05:34.800 --> 05:36.800 and online audio converter. 05:36.800 --> 05:39.800 Again, link in the show notes. 05:39.800 --> 05:41.800 They're both fast and easy. 05:41.800 --> 05:46.800 And I note that both have now added some simple video editing tools, 05:46.800 --> 05:48.800 which I'm going to check that out too. 05:48.800 --> 05:52.800 You probably wouldn't use them for really serious work. 05:52.800 --> 05:57.800 You know, free online video editing. 05:57.800 --> 06:02.800 You know, you're going to want it to use it on very short clips, 06:02.800 --> 06:06.800 but the kinds of ones that I might take with my phone. 06:06.800 --> 06:11.800 You know, sometimes I'll do a 30 second or 40 second video, 06:11.800 --> 06:17.800 and like, you know, the last couple of seconds something went wrong. 06:17.800 --> 06:27.800 You know, this might be a good way to just do a little cutting, clipping of the video. 06:27.800 --> 06:33.800 So, for stuff like that, you know, or maybe taking two video clips and combining them, 06:33.800 --> 06:36.800 I think it'd probably work just fine. 06:36.800 --> 06:42.800 So, anyway, a couple of tools and some ways to use them. 06:42.800 --> 06:49.800 So, this is a hookah for Hacker Public Radio signing off and encouraging you as always 06:49.800 --> 06:51.800 to support free software. 06:51.800 --> 06:52.800 Bye-bye. 06:52.800 --> 06:59.800 You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.org. 06:59.800 --> 07:04.800 Today's show was contributed by a HPR in this night like yourself, 07:04.800 --> 07:07.800 if you ever thought of a coin podcast. 07:07.800 --> 07:11.800 Click on our contributally to find out how easy it means. 07:11.800 --> 07:17.800 Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an onsthost.com. 07:17.800 --> 07:20.800 The internet archive and our synced.net. 07:20.800 --> 07:25.800 On the satellite stages, today's show is released on our creative comments. 07:25.800 --> 07:29.800 Attribution, 4.0 international license.